


In the Tunnels

by Vesta (Biggelois)



Category: Original Work
Genre: Angst, Gen, Horror, Original work - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-02
Updated: 2010-05-02
Packaged: 2017-10-09 06:33:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/84096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Biggelois/pseuds/Vesta
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They send us down, one at the time, one day in between. Down in the dark, in the cold.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In the Tunnels

**Author's Note:**

> This is a short original story. It consists of four parts, all connected.

**The Last Dawn**

 

It's almost dawn. My last dawn. The clouds are sprinkled pink from the slowly rising sun. I'm going underground today. It's a maze down there. Long tunnels, no lights but the pale white from the  lantern I'm allowed to bring. They say it's cold down there. Cold, and easy to get lost. The ones that made it back the last time, said that there are marks on the walls. Scratch marks. Forgotten words from forgotten diggers. It's too dark to see what they say, the marks. But I can imagine. 'Don't go'. 'Don't leave me here'. 'I can't breathe'...

What will I do if, when, I turn wrong? When I miss one tunnel and takes the next? Am I  one of those who will be not remembered by a last scream on the tunnel wall? I don't know. The ones that came back, they took the right tunnels. Reached the light again, half-blind and crazy. They cry at night, cry at the darkness.

The tunnel yawns open like a mouth, steel-clad teeth ready to bite. Devour all and any that comes too close. Something is rotting down there, in the cold, in the dark. Festering.

It's dawn. My last dawn. The sun peaks up above the distant mountain. I've been thinking about making a run for it. But I've seen those who have tried. They never come up from the dark again. It has to be done. I shoulder my back-pack. It's not heavy. I have food for a week, two if I'm careful. I won't need much more. They say I'll find 'things' to eat down there. Say not to worry. It'll be fine. They are lying.

The sun is warming my back when I take the first step towards the tunnel. I must remember how it feels. I will be so cold down there, in the dark.

 

 

**In the Dark**

 

It's cold. Colder than I thought. It's been days, eons, since I last could move my fingers like I used to. They are numb, like the rest of me. There are marks on the walls down here, I try desperately to trace them but my fingers are too cold. Maybe it's because I've scraped them bloody already, that I can't feel much.

 

I hear noises from time to time. Low wails, rustling of I don't know what. I can't see. My lantern died some time ago. Not that is was of much use anyway, it wasn't brighter than a firefly. I don't know how long I've been here. Time doesn't run in the same way as up above. There are no days, only dark. Only endless tunnels, with no light at the end.

 

Sometimes I think I've taken the wrong path, it's hard to say. The marks on the walls stopped making sense when I lost the fingers on my right hand. My reading hand. I run my left over the walls, trying to find my way, trying to see what they say. I might have lost fingers there too. I don't know. I can't feel. Anything. I felt it when my hands began to bleed, the blood trickling down my wrists the only source of heat I had felt for days, eons. It didn't last. I might not even be bleeding anymore, the cold makes sure of that. Stops it from flowing. Such a shame.

 

I don't know when I ate the last time. The hunger has long since passed from being painful to a normal state. The food rations I was allowed to bring lasted me a week and a half. I had counted the bites, the portions. To make it last, to keep track of time. Now even that is gone. I stumble on soft matter sometimes. I touched it once and it made a noise. They said I would find ‘things' down here, and I have. That I wouldn't need to be hungry. They said that everything was alright, would be fine. They were lying.

 

Time runs cold down here in the dark. Cold and slow. Never ending. Never beginning. I take the next turn, what's left of my hand trailing the marks, trying to see. My foot connects with something, a low thud. A low moan. The map I memorized is useless. Space doesn't work the same way down here. Walls move, floors shift.

 

I don't think I'll make it out. I'm not even sure I want to anymore. I don't know if I want to be like them that succeeded, half blind and crazy. Crippled. Maimed. Crying at the darkness. Crying over what they did to get out.

 

I can cry here. In the cold. In the dark.

 

 

 

**In the Cold**

 

It's so quiet. The sounds that filter through my foggy mind I cannot recognise. I don't know where they come from. If it's me making them or someone, something, else. Before, I read about tunnels, caves. The books said you could feel the faint draft of air even at the deepest levels. Here it is still. I've been waiting for that wisp of moving air but none has come. Not since the light from the opening disappeared behind a bend in the tunnel.

 

I'm saying ‘the' tunnel. There are more. A maze. A labyrinth. I learned a map, read it with my fingers, we all did. But the walls move. I am lost. There is no light at the end because I'm not walking anymore.

 

My feet hurts. I think they are raw, I'm not sure. Since my hands stopped functioning, useless fingerless lumps at the end of my arms, I can't feel if I'm bleeding. I can feel the rough stone scraping my chin when I move my head though. Someone must have dug the tunnel, once. Someone must have started it. Made the first mark.

 

I try to listen for voices. What wouldn't I give to hear a voice again. Not just the muffled whimpers, hidden sobs, which have drifted towards me through the unmoving air. I think I'm sitting up, against the wall. It's hard to tell, what with the floors shifting. The hard surface against my face anchors me a little. It feels good, to be not moving, not stumbling. They send us down one at the time, a day in between. There is no getting away. So there has to be at least someone else down here with me. I can't be all alone.

 

There is someone here just in front of me, the one who went down the day before. Someone who is listening just as I am, after the faintest sound of a living thing. I didn't know that stone could be so dead. They say that the stone gives us life, that's why we have to go down. Seek the truth. I don't want that truth anymore. The ones who have made it up, they have seen no truth. Only the never-ending darkness that will never leave you. That's why they cry.

 

 

There is someone coming after me, I know this. Someone just as afraid as I am. Was. I'm not anymore. I'm waiting. For someone to find me. Drag me up. Eat me up. They didn't think we knew, but we did. All of us diggers, we know. That was why we don't get enough food. We will find other things to eat.

 

I wish it wasn't so cold. I long for warmth. And I wish it wasn't so quiet. I don't dare to make any sounds myself anymore. What if I miss a voice speaking to me? I'll just sit here, against the wall, the stone at my back. All quiet and still. I'm not afraid anymore, I can wait. Someone will be coming. And I'll be waiting. Down here in the dark. In the cold. Come warm me.

 

 

**The Last Night**

 

The soft sounds of the pebble scraping against the wall echoes in the tunnel. I've figured out how to hold the pebble between my palms. I am writing my requiem. There are marks here already, I can feel them when I rub my face against the wall. I can't read them. But I try to remember them anyway. Someone has to remember them; the last screams, the last tears. Soon I'll be there too. A thin line in the stone, forgotten but ever present. Because what goes down, never leaves.

 

It's not so dark anymore. Not like it was when my lantern flickered and died. The darkness ate me up then, but I think it has spit me out again. I can almost make out the walls. Or perhaps that is just a memory of the last thing I saw before I was swallowed. I don't know, I don't know anything anymore. Only the cold and the dark, the silence. Even the faint sounds I heard before have stopped. I wonder if that is because I have gotten off track completely, got so lost in the maze that I am only a vague shape in the back of someone's mind, someone still up there. Or maybe I am truly alone now. I don't know. It doesn't matter.

 

I'll be here always. Even when my flesh has melted into the stone, I'll be here. A mark on the wall, a sigh in the unmoving air. I know this. I've heard the others still here, felt their marks. The feeble tries to leave at least a little left behind. If nothing more than a scratch and a pile of rotting cloth.

 

What would it be like to see the sun again? Feel it. My eyes wouldn't work properly if I got out. The sun would sure blind me, like it did with the ones that got out before. They screamed at the sun. Cried at the night. I wonder if they would have stayed down here, if they had known what it would be like. To be out again. I bet even the softest whisper of wind would hurt, the skin goes so brittle here in the cold. Breaks for nothing.

 

I wonder if the night ever ends, when you're out. If the darkness ever brightens. No. It doesn't. Ever. It's so quiet here, at the bottom. My breaths are rasping, I can almost hear my own heartbeats. Slow, so slow. Like a lizard. Slow and unmoving. Waiting for the sun to come up and make my blood flow again. I've made my mark. I am not to be anymore. Soon.

 

My last dawn. I remember the sun warming my back. The pink clouds over the mountain. The last time I was warm. Time runs cold down here in the dark. It never begins and it never ends. Spread on the tunnel floor there are little lumps, short moments in time, already gone, forgotten. I will have to remember for them, the ones that come after me. There will be more. One at the time, one day in between. Slowly. Blindly. Crawling along the walls, reading with bleeding hands. But I am here. I will tell them. I will remember. They will remember, know my name. I whisper it into the darkness, leaves it floating just above me, the air holding it in its clammy hands. It doesn't matter if I close my eyes or not. But now I can rest. I can wait. Here, where the night never ends. In the cold, in the dark.

 

 


End file.
